Review: Broadway Across Canada's Clue a slice of comedic comfort

A tight pace, taut script and terrific butler are key to success as Clue Live on Stage! winds up the 2025/26 season of Broadway Across Canada. Playing until Sunday, July 19 at the Northern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium, this rollicking farce-come-murder-mystery dishes up gut-busting laughs to delight youngsters, their parents and virtually anybody with a craving [...]

A tight pace, taut script and terrific butler are key to success as Clue Live on Stage! winds up the 2025/26 season of Broadway Across Canada. Playing until Sunday, July 19 at the Northern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium, this rollicking farce-come-murder-mystery dishes up gut-busting laughs to delight youngsters, their parents and virtually anybody with a craving for brain candy.

Based on the 1985 Paramount Pictures production (inspired in turn by the classic board game), the 80-minute, one-act play goes quite some distance in replicating the cultishly popular movie starring Tim Curry as Wadsworth, the tuxedoed manservant holding virtually every scene together. While the movie featured an all-star cast including Leslie Ann Warren, Michael McKean and Madeline Kahn, the Broadway Across Canada production is also studded with excellent comedic talent, with Camille Capers vamping it up as Miss Scarlet, TJ Lamando as the closeted gay bureaucrat Mr. Green, and Sarah Mackenzie Baron as the frozen-faced Mrs. White.

Not to worry if you have not seen the movie, and have but a passing knowledge of candlesticks in the library. You will still find yourself delighted by the stage play. The evening begins with our favourite sound effect — an ear-splitting crack of thunder set against the maniacal tinkle of a harpsicord.

Yes, there is a frightful New England storm afoot as the household staff of Boddy Mansion stands in the cavernous front hall, listening to a crackly, McCarthy-era radio broadcast about the House Committee on Un-American Activities, devoted to rooting out Communism in the United States. The mid-century politics contribute to a sinister tone as one by one, guests arrive, dripping with rain, for a dinner party. The bridge is out, making it hard to get to Boddy Mansion and harder still to leave.

The butler Wadsworth (Adam Brett) assuages all concerns by offering a glass of bubbly served by the coquettish maid, Yvette (Zoie Tannous). When each guest is given a weapon as a party favour, it becomes clear that the visitors (all assigned an alias to hide their real identity) are connected in a criminal fashion. Turns out that each is being blackmailed by their host, Mr. Boddy, who is dead in short order.

But who killed him, and where, using what weapon? And what of the other folks that turn up stabbed, clunked on the head by a lead pipe or otherwise extinguished? As the body count increases, so does the pace of the production.

Madcap doesn’t begin to describe the sequence of events as chandeliers plunge from the ceiling and dark, secret passageways emerge. Two factors contribute to the strength of Clue Live on Stage! There isn’t a wasted word in the script (based on the screenplay by Jonathan Lynn and written by Sandy Rustin) which is both delightfully silly and devilishly clever, with barely a breath between the two.

The wordplay is magnificent, especially when it comes to Col. Mustard (Nate Curlott). A large and buffoonish character, Col. Mustard owes a great debt to Mrs. Malaprop as he careens from one misunderstanding to the next throughout the production. “...it’s been recommended that tonight you use a pseudonym,” says the butler as he greets Col. Mustard.

“Oh, no thank you. I took an antihistamine before I came.” But it’s not all talking heads.

A slapstick level of physical comedy anchors the show, drawing great guffaws from the audience. (I’m not sure I would have enjoyed myself nearly as much if a certain girl of about 10-years had not been sitting nearby. Her peals of pure joy were as inspiring as some of the on-stage antics.)

Particularly effective were the scenes in which virtually the entire cast steps room-to-room in cartoonish clump, almost like pieces moving space-to-space along the fabled board game. Brett is more-than-impressive as Wadsworth — a character that combines a high degree of physicality with a smooth intellect and electric elocution. Sometimes his body moves with the elegance of a ballet dancer, other times he’s bouncing like a rubber ball off of a stuck door.

He manages to land the complex ending in a satisfying fashion, even as multiple possibilities for resolution are presented. While Clue Live on Stage! is certainly comical, it’s also somewhat of a comfort. The set, with its elegant brocade wall coverings and lacey touches, feels familiar.

The golden light that exudes from the lounge when it slid into view made me want to step inside for a scotch before a surely roaring fire. An evening with Clue Live on Stage! may be rooted in mayhem and murder.

But at the same time, it exudes warmth, predictability and safety. It reminds me of being home on a Friday night with a particularly happy family. Broadway

Across Canada’s Clue Live on Stage! Based on the screenplay by Jonathan Lynn, written by Sandy Rustin with additional material by Hunter Foster and Eric Price Director: Casey Hushion Where: Northern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium 11455 87 Ave.

When: Until July 19 Tickets: Starting at $51 and available at ticketmaster.ca or by called 780-427-2760